Now that AT&T has joined the Android revolution, the first question new Android users will ask is what Android apps should I download? Luckily we've created a simple guide to get you started:

First we'll start with the operating system version of the Motorola Backflip at launch, which is version 1.5 the latest and greatest to date is 2.1 (with majority of users on 1.6). This may affect your ability to download some apps as they are compatible with higher versions of the OS. Why is the OS version so out of date? Motoblur Motorola tricked out the software for social networking ease however they have not released Motoblur on the latest and greatest Android OS. Don't fret an update is coming soon.

Now that we're over the OS hump, we'll recommend some of the best Android apps for your Motorola Backflip many for free!

ASTRO File Manager

Browse and Search files on your SD Card and phone with Astro File Manager.

Advanced Task Killer

Close individual or all apps and background services with Advanced Task Killer.

Meridian Player

Meridian Player for Music & Videos.

Dolphin Browser

Dolphin Browser allows you to browse the web using Tabs and create shortcuts using Gestures.

Handcent SMS

Handcent SMS offers text messaging like on iPhone, get T9 text capabilities and text signatures.

Shazam

Shazam... simply awesome! Get any song by simply letting your phone listen to it!

i Music Tao

i Music & i Music Tao allows you to download free MP3s.

Pandora Radio

Stream music for free with Pandora Internet Radio.

Gmote

Turn your AT&T Backflip into a media remote with Gmote and even control your computer via phone!

ShopSavvy

Scan bar codes of products in stores to find best pricing nearby or online with ShopSavvy.

Google Shopper for Android

Photo scan products to get pricing and details with Google's Shopper

Aloqa Always Be A Local

Aloqa location-based app finds places nearby you versus you searching for it.

Abduction!

Abduction! Is an additive game using your phone's accelerometer.

Robo Defense

Robo Defense is a classic tower defense game for Android phones.

Mystique. Chapter 2: The Child

Check out parts 1, 2, and 3 of the Mystique 3D horror puzzle game series.

Wixel

Like words games? Try Wuzzle for hours of fun!

Jewellust

Kill time with addictive Jewellust game

Solitaire

You can't forget a classic time-killer like Solitaire.

What the Doodle!?

Guess what others are drawing while they guess your drawing all online with What The Doodle!?

BlackJack Pro

Satisfy your Vegas crave with Blackjack Pro!

If you download all these apps you might run out of space on your Backflip! Do check these apps out and tell us what you think in the comments.

My Thoughts On Techcrunch And Daniel Brusilovsky

I will do a more comprehensive year in review for Cyberlaw generally, but I thought it would be fun to take a close look at how 47 USC 230 fared in 2009. This is the first full calendar year following the Ninth Circuit's en banc Roommates.com opinion, and many of us initially feared that the case would create a huge hole in 230's otherwise solid immunity. As it turns out, those concerns have not come to pass. If anything, 2009 shows us just how strong the immunity remains.

I blogged on a total of 22 cases issued in 2009 that discussed the statute. (I blog on every case I see that substantively discusses 47 USC 230). I blogged on other cases in 2009 that were decided before 2009, such as the Woodhull v. Meinel case from October 2008 and DC v. Harvard-Westlake, a 2007 arbitrator's dismissal that came to light in 2009.

Of the 22 calendar year 2009 cases, I would classify 14 of them (63%) as easy defense wins, frequently on a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss or state law equivalent. Even many of the remaining 8 cases contained good news for defendants. For example, in Shiamili, the defense inexplicably lost at the district court level but got an easy reversal on appeal. The Stayart court granted Yahoo an easy defense win, although co-defendant Various didn't get the 230 ruling. Similarly, the Barnes case granted the defense an easy 230 win on one theory (negligent undertaking) but denied 230 for a different one (promissory estoppel). The Certain Approval Process case said 230 did not prevent the plaintiff from amending the complaint to add a cause of action, but once added, the court instantly zapped the claim on other grounds.

This leaves four unambiguous 230 defense losses in 2009. The leading 230 defense loss was the Tenth Circuit FTC v. Accusearch case, which held a retailer liable for reselling illicit phone records. The other major 230 defense loss was the NPS v. StubHub case, which held that 230 may not apply to a lawsuit over the alleged illegal ticket scalping by StubHub's sellers. Both of these cases involve the retailing of illegal items, suggesting that 230's boundaries may not reach that far.

The other two defense losses are less consequential. The Project Playlist held that 230 does not preempt state IP law claims, a conclusion that deserves note only because the Ninth Circuit held otherwise in the 2007 ccBill case. I believe that no other courts will follow the Ninth Circuit's rule that 230 preempts state IP laws, making the Project Playlist ruling unsurprising.

In People v. Gourlay, a web host was denied a 230 defense to a criminal prosecution for child molestation- and child pornography-related claims. This case turns mostly on the web host's active role creating the child pornography (as well as the host's molestation of the child actor); with that context, this case may have little influence on other cases. Indeed, the court made clear that web hosts providing standard web hosting services could fully qualify for 230 protection against a state criminal prosecution of child pornography dissemination.

In reverse chronological order, a brief overview of the 230 cases from 2009:

Nemet Chevrolet v. ConsumerAffairs.com (4th Cir. Dec. 29, 2009). One of three federal appellate court 230(c)(1) rulings in 2009 (Barnes and Accusearch are the others). A solid defense win for a consumer review website. The plaintiff's claims that the website contributed to the reviews' development and fabricated reviews were tossed on a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.

Shiamili v. Real Estate Group (N.Y. App. Div. Dec. 17, 2009). In an unpublicized January 2009 decision, the trial court denied a website's 230 dismissal request for claims based on user-supplied comments. In December, this error was fixed on appeal despite allegations that the website chooses and administers the user content.

Dart v. Craigslist (N.D. Ill. Oct. 20, 2009). Craigslist got a big win in its ongoing battles with various government agencies over prostitution ads on Craigslist when the court held it wasn't liable for those ads.

Riggs v. MySpace (C.D. Cal. Sept. 17, 2009). A goofy case. The court holds that MySpace's deletion of Riggs' account was protected by 230(c)(1) on the apparent theory that Riggs (the plaintiff) was the third party supplier of the deleted content. This case would make more sense as a 230(c)(2) case.

Finkel v. Facebook (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Sept. 15, 2009). Facebook wasn't liable for the contents of a user's private group even though Facebook placed a copyright notice on the page.

Intellect Art v. Milewski (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Sept. 15, 2009). Ripoff Report wins again.

Stayart v. Yahoo (E.D. Wis. Aug. 28, 2009). An convoluted, and possibly confused, ruling that Yahoo wasn't liable for search results snippets. However, Various was denied 230 because it may have originated the content in question.

Cornelius v. DeLuca (E.D. Mo. Aug. 18, 2009). An online retailer wasn't liable for user-supplied comments despite a conspiracy allegation.

Goddard v. Google (N.D. Cal. July 30, 2009). This is a follow-on ruling to an important December 2008 ruling in this case, which dismissed the plaintiff's complaints but gave the plaintiffs another chance. The December 2008 ruling is one of the most interesting and important decisions interpreting Roommates.com. In the July ruling, the judge again found that 230 insulates Google from liability due to allegedly fraudulent ads run through its network and granted a final dismissal.

Doe II v. MySpace (Cal. App. Ct. June 30, 2009). MySpace isn't liable for users' sexual assaults on other users.

FTC v. Accusearch (10th Cir. June 29, 2009). The second of three federal appellate court rulings on 230(c)(1). The defendant was an online retailer of illegal phone records. The retailer claimed that the phone records came from third party suppliers and therefore 230 immunized the retailer from liability associated with the records. The court echoed the Ninth Circuit's Roommates.com decision, effectively extending that case to the Tenth Circuit, and said that the retailer was responsible for selling the illicit phone records despite 230.

Zango v. Kaspersky (9th Cir. June 25, 2009). This is the only 2009 ruling addressing 47 USC 230(c)(2), the overshadowed and frequently overlooked sibling of 230(c)(1). Despite the rarity of 230(c)(2) cases, this case could be fairly influential. The Ninth Circuit held that 230(c)(2) protected an anti-spyware software vendor's decision to classify software as a threat. If you missed it, you might want to take a look at my presentation slides on 230(c)(2), which distill my deep look at 230(c)(2) this summer.

Gibson v. Craigslist (S.D.N.Y. June 15, 2009). Craigslist isn't liable for physical injury caused by a gun purchased via a Craigslist ad.

Doe IX v. MySpace (E.D. Tex. May 22, 2009). MySpace isn't liable for users' sexual assaults on other users.

Barnes v. Yahoo (9th Cir. May 7, 2009; amended opinion June 22, 2009). The third of three federal appellate court opinions on 230(c)(1). The Ninth Circuit held that 230 preempted a claim against a service provider for negligently delaying the removal of user content (essentially, Zeran redux), but 230 did not preempt a promissory estoppel claim based on promises the service provider made to the person requesting takedown. The initial Ninth Circuit opinion had two other unfortunate digressions: (1) it said that 230 was an affirmative defense that did not support a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, and (2) the opinion had ambiguous language implying that 230 preempted only state claims, not federal claims. The amended opinion helpfully eliminated both digressions.

Atlantic Records v. Project Playlist (S.D.N.Y. March 25, 2009). 230 does not preempt a state IP claimin this case, a violation of state copyright law for pre-1972 sound recordings.

Joyner v. Lazzareschi (Cal. App. Ct. March 18, 2009). A message board operator wasn't liable for user posts.

Raggi v. Las Vegas Police (D. Nev. March 10, 2009). A union wasn't liable for messages that union members posted on the union-operated message board.

Certain Approval Programs v. Xcentric Ventures (D. Ariz. March 9, 2009). 230 did not bar amending a complaint to add a new cause of action when the plaintiff also adequately alleged that the Ripoff Report contributed to the creation and development of the content at issue.

People v. Gourlay (Mich. App. Ct. March 3, 2009). This case involves the prosecution of a pornographic web host who also molested the child actor. The web host asserted a 230 defense in trying to overturn the conviction for the charges related to pornography dissemination. Although 230 can preempt state criminal prosecutions, and web hosts are protected by 230 for their ordinary web hosting activities, this web host actively participated in the site's development and therefore lost 230's protection.

NPS v. StubHub (Mass. Super. Ct. Jan. 26, 2009). In a long-running battle between the New England Patriots and season ticketholders who want to resell their tickets via StubHub, StubHub was denied summary judgment on 230 grounds. The court cites Roommates.com in saying that StubHub may have contributed to illegal ticket scalping sufficient to potentially disqualify it for 230 protection.

GW Equity v. Xcentric Ventures (N.D. Tex. Jan. 9, 2009). Ripoff Report is protected by 230 even though it offers pull-down menus and manipulates user-submitted reports.

. . . nor should you.

I mean it.

And as far an unconferences go, WordCamps PodCamps, Ignites, TechMeetups or Hack Days haven't been that different from other paid conferences that I have attended; hit and miss, but mostly miss because the organizers are high on a sugar buzz.

What are the two things that make them hit or miss? They be:

1) Unprepared speakers
2) Awesome hallway conversations

The only way to have an unconference that gets people excited about coming back again or speaking about the event is to manage number 1 above. Unconference organizers shouldn't take candy from strangers and let them ruin the experience. Sure the suckers are tasty but while you're indulging on the sweets of filling the slots with people, the attendees are stuck with a sour experience. Bring that hallway enthusiasm to the stage in the form of raw, uncut sugar.

Unconference organizers should be in contact with their speakers dialoging about how to make their event useful to attendees, memorable, something that makes an impact in their daily lives. Nobody wants to sit and listen to what are essentially product diatribes or be spoken to like they are children.

How to save your unconference:

1) Plan, plan and plan some more. Plan everything and have a plan for it your plan doesn't work (because it is an unconference doesn't mean that attendee expectations are lower when they walk through the door than they would be for the $1000 conference that you bemoan)

2) Tell your speakers to get prepared (this is a golden opportunity to share experiences that can help people not make the same mistakes)

3) Create attendee tracks (create unconference value by allowing a channel for filtered conversations a.k.a. hallway conversations)

This post might not come off like it, but I am a big fan of unconferences. However, I am beginning to think that the best conferences might be a mix of the traditional and the new step-child.

Viva unconference.

DISCLOSURE OF MATERIAL CONNECTION: http://cmp.ly/0

Unconference Organizers Shouldn't Take Candy From Strangers is a post from: TechStartups.com

Was Census Worker Bill Sparkman A Child Predator?

Update: Before any more people start going bonkers that I'm accusing Sparkman of anything, take a breath. ... . ...All I'm doing is looking at any and all possibilities. ... Why strip him naked and bind and gag him, which has serious sexual overtones?

I have no idea what happened, but from the reporting I've seen, neither does anyone else. If he adopted a boy as a single man, or was married and split with the wife and kids, who knows. But I never assume I know a story or motive until I know it. Right now we don't. I'm simply speculating on one possible alternative, however impolite.

Well, golly, Mr. Riehl, I'm sure Mr. Sparkman's wife and son must really enjoy your coy little efforts to smear their tortured-to-death husband and father:

"We are deeply saddened by the loss of our co-worker," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said in a statement. "Our thoughts and prayers are with William Sparkman's son, other family and friends."

Gee, how would Dan Riehl like it if we asked, without any evidence to back up our questioning, if Dan Riehl had raped and murdered any little boys? I suspect he wouldn't like it at all.

But of course, this isn't the first time Riehl's been deeply amoral and stupid in public. It isn't even the first time this month. That's just par for the course with him.

Most of us are generally aware that television isn't the healthiest of activities. Yet, like cigarette smoking in the 1970s, it's one of those harms we continue to whitewash or worse exposing our children to it as though it were as innocent as playing with Tinkertoys.

Yet as today's Boston Globe reminds us, TV is not this passive device you sit your children in front of with no ill effects. Decades worth of research have shown the harmful effects of TV on your child's development. Most child psychologists and child development experts recommend no TV whatsoever for a child before the age of 2 or 3. None. Yet a whopping 43 percent of parents plop their toddler down in front of the television set, apparently blind to the consequence of their actions.

But don't take my word for it. Look at the research:

Countless studies have documented the inverse link between devotion to the boob tube and achievement in school. Researchers at Columbia's College of Physicians and Surgeons concluded in 2007, for example, that 14-year-olds who watched one or more hours of television daily were at elevated risk for poor homework completion, negative attitudes toward school, poor grades, and long-term academic failure.'' Those who watched three or more hours a day were at even greater risk for subsequent attention and learning difficulties,'' and were the least likely to go to college.

In 2005, a study published in the American Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine found that the harm caused by TV watching shows up even after correcting the data to account for students' intelligence, family conditions, and prior behavioral problems. The bottom line: Increased time spent watching television during childhood and adolescence was associated with a lower level of educational attainment by early adulthood.''

The baleful effects of TV aren't limited to education. The University of Michigan Health System notes on its extensive website that kids who watch TV are more likely to smoke, to be overweight, to suffer from sleep difficulties, and to have high cholesterol.

There are also the studies that show that teens who watch more sexual content on TV are twice as likely to be involved in a pregnancy over the next three years than their peers. Imagine an illicit drug was resulting in twice the amount of teen pregnancies and how quickly parents would be an uproar to stop the peddling of that drug in their neighborhood.

Ah, but you argue, I grew up on TV and I came out okay! Sure, personal anecdotes and analogies are great, but not a great way to inform public policy or carry on a serious public health debate. What works for a single individual at a single point of time in a single household doesn't carry the same weight as a scientific study that examines data across families and neighborhoods, studies that were carried out over time and with attention to possible alternative explanations (such as the fact that maybe in your household, TV time was more strictly limited than you remember, or the content in the programs themselves was very different than today's content).

The upshot we Americans watch way too much TV and we raise our children on TV, somewhat oblivious to its negative effects on our children's development. While TV isn't evil, it is a powerful media that has a well-understood impact on a child's or teen's development. Like the Internet, it should be allowed with clear rules and conditions, and time doing it should be monitored and limited. What the right number for you and your family will vary, but it should not be whenever they want and as much as they want.

Read the full article: Silence that idiot box!

But I don't give a hoot that you are "having a busy Monday," your child "took 30 minutes to brush his teeth," your dog "just ate an ant trap" or you want to "save the piglets." And I really, really don't care which Addams Family member you most resemble. (I could have told you the answer before you took the quiz on Facebook.)

I was at a Kurt Vonnegut talk in New York a few years ago. Talking about writing, life, and everything.

He explained why people have such a need for drama in their life.

He said, People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let's look at a few examples.

He drew an empty grid on the board, like this:

Time moves from left to right. Happiness from bottom to top.

He said, Let's look at a very common story arc. The story of Cinderella.

It starts with her awful life with evil stepsisters, scrubbing the fireplace. Then she get an invitation to the ball! Things look up. Then the fairy godmother makes her a dress and a coach. Even better! Then she goes to the ball, and dances with the prince! This is great! But then it's midnight. She has to go. Oh no. Sadness. Back to her humdrum life scrubbing the fireplace. But it's not as bad as before, because she's had this encouraging experience. Then, the prince finds her, and the happiness factor is off the chart! Happily ever after.

People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.

He wiped the board clean and said, Now let's look at another popular story arc: the disaster.

It's an ordinary day in an ordinary town. But something horrible happens! A child falls down a well! The whole town gathers to save her. Old grudges surface, but are belittled in the light of this tragedy. Rifts are bonded as people work together. The child is saved, and all is well. But notice it's a little better than it was before, now that this incident has brought them all closer together.

People LOVE that story! This story arc has been written a thousand times in a thousand tales. And because of it, people think their lives are supposed to be like this.

But the problem is, life is really like this...

Our lives drifts along with normal things happening. Some ups, some downs, but nothing to go down in history about. Nothing so fantastic or terrible that it'll be told for a thousand years.

But because we grew up surrounded by big dramatic story arcs in books and movies, we think are lives are supposed to be filled with huge ups and downs! So people pretend there is drama where there is none.

That's why people invent fights. That's why we're drawn to sports. That's why we act like everything that happens to us is such a big deal.

We're trying to make our life into a fairy tale.

His dad's quips have resulted in more than 231,000 followers under the account name @smydadsays. But after it attracted wide attention in recent weeks as followers retweeted postings, and blogs and mainstream media covered it, Mr. Halpern finally broke the news.

But his dad didn't really get it. He asked if I had to start up the Internet to get on Twitter, and then I felt better because I knew he wouldn't understand the grand scope of what was going on, said Mr. Halpern in an interview.

Shortly after the revelation, his dad, who doesn't have Internet on his personal computer by choice, changed the subject. Mr. Halpern asked his father if he wanted to see the site. He responded with an adamant no, so Mr. Halpern read him some posts to check for accuracy, to which his dad responded, Yeah, I said that.

Mr. Halpern said that if his dad had been upset by the account, he would have discontinued it. He's my dad, and I live in his house rent-free. That's not a very nice thank you, he said.

He has long been documenting the quips of his father, who grew up working on a farm in Kentucky and was a doctor for more than 40 years. As a child, he recorded them in his diaries, and when he got older, he would post them as his status on Gmail Chat to give his friends a chuckle. In August, he found a new medium for disseminating his father's expletive-loaded one-liners: Twitter.

Mr. Halpern started the account after he left a job in Los Angeles and was unable to retrieve all of his personal documents on his work computer. He had just moved back in with his parents in San Diego, and a friend suggested he use Twitter as a way to document his life, because he had stopped keeping journals. He was reluctant because of the 140-character cap on tweets, but then thought it could be a good way to keep a record of his dad's quotes. I didn't expect it to have more than 10 people following it, he said.

A month later, he has become an Internet sensation. On Aug. 3, he began posting such gems as Your brother brought his baby over this morning. He told me it could stand. It couldn't stand for s. Just sat there. Big let down. Watching the Little League World Series, he said, These kids are all fat. I remember when you were in little leagueyou were fat. Other posts are best read on his page.

Mr. Halpern works from home as a writer for Maxim.com, and his father is retired, so throughout the day he collects the funny, and sometimes outrageous, things he says and chooses one to post each day. Early on, one of his friends brought up the possibility of his dad not saying anything quote-worthy, but he knew that wouldn't be a problem.

During the course of a day, he says tons of funny things because there's no filter. He admits some of his dad's best quotes are over 140 characters and are disqualified because of the limit.

Since his account has blown up in the media he's been approached by book agents, publishers and producers. In Los Angeles he tried to make it as a screenwriter but didn't find much success. It's ironic to think that I busted my ass trying to get my own writing out there, and what has been successful for me is something I didn't even write, he said.

When you think of a hard-core gamer, do you picture a teenage boy battling his friends in World of Warcraft?

Also on wired.com:

• Gaming Gets a Level Up On Age
• Recession Proof' Gaming Industry Ignores the Stock Market
• SXSW: LoudCrowd Turns Music into Social Video Arcade
• Big Game Publishers Muscle In On iPhone Upstarts

Should sex offenders be allowed to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace and other social networking sites? Illinois Governor Pat Quinn (pictured) thinks not, and this week signed into law a bill that bans all registered sex offenders in his state from using social networks.

This sounds satisfying on first listen after all, why wouldn't we want to take every possible measure to prevent the horrendous crimes of sex offenders? But many legal blogs are pointing out that the legislation is overzealous and possibly unconstitutional.

Peeing in Public? You Might be a Sex Offender

Salon points out that in 13 states you'll be added to the sex offenders register for urinating in public (in two of which, only if a child was present), while 29 states required registration for teenagers who had consensual sex with another teenager. In other words: it's not just child molesters and rapists who would be banned if such laws became accepted.

Then there's the problem of implementation: who is going to keep an eye on the thousands of registered sex offenders to see if they're using Facebook and Twitter? Surely there are better ways to spend police time than tracking the web habits of someone who had sex in high school?

NYTimes.com is Banned, Too

Other blogs, like Technology Liberation and Hacker Journalist, point out that the broad definition of social networking websites essentially bans these people from the web as a whole banned from posting a resume on LinkedIn, banned from reading the New York Times (or any major newspaper) online because it lets you set up a profile. The description reads:

Social networking website means an Internet website containing profile web pages of the members of the website that include the names or nicknames of such members, photographs placed on the profile web pages by such members, or any other personal or personally identifying information about such members and links to other profile web pages on social networking websites of friends or associates of such members that can be accessed by other members or visitors to the website. A social networking website provides members of or visitors to such website the ability to leave messages or comments on the profile web page that are visible to all or some visitors to the profile web page and may also include a form of electronic mail for members of the social networking website.

In short, punishing rapists and sex offenders may feel satisfying, but this isn't what the bill does: it'll likely affect those who committed far lesser crimes, prove unenforceable, and may even be unconstitutional.

Every year her family rents a cabin in the Smoky Mountains. Everyone comes from far and wide to reunite for a few days, to spend time cooking, eating, talking, swimming and chilling with each other.

When I got home tonight I was showing my son some photos from previous years. Last year he wasn't confident in the pool, the year before that he was just walking, before that he was just a baby and an only child.

Seeing my adolescent nieces and nephews made me think about how the time has passed between reunions, about how our children are growing up.

I was stunned this weekend with how much our nieces and nephews have grown, they are from 8 to 16 now. They are great kids, but they are no longer little children who I had grown accustomed to seeing there each year.

When I first started going to the reunions we didn't have kids yet. Now when I look at photos from just three years ago, those young relatives have really matured. They are teens and tweens now. As that age dictates, they are all about hanging out with each other instead of the adults. It's all about independence now.

We use to end each weekend with an improvised play by the kids. The shows always included a comedy segment, some dramatic scenes by the pool (pictured here) and finally a magic act. The show was always an endless example of how kids imaginations work. We adults would tire towards the end of the show, but we would always cheer and applaud like we were watching a Broadway musical.

My kids are 2 and 3, they aren't quite ready to perform a variety show yet. Parents always tell us how our kids will grow quickly, I never doubted this for a minute. I notice their growth all of the time, especially in pictures and videos.

What's sinking in is that their innocence will only remain fully intact for a few more years. Our children really are growing quickly, too quickly sometimes. When I see how fast our family has grown, I realize it's only going to occur faster with our own kids. Soon they will be performing the reunion variety show, soon after they will outgrow it.

We tend to get caught up so much in our professional lives that we sometimes miss the most important people in them. Shut your machine off, kill your phone, get out there and spend some time with your children while you have it.

(From my Marketing News column.)

There are two kinds of brands in the world. If you are a marketer, you know what I mean. There are brands people like to talk about, and brands they don't.

Brands of the first kind the brands that marketing thinker Rohit Bhargava calls talkable are uncommon. Apple's iPhone is a talkable brand. So is Harley-Davidson. If you market a talkable brand, you have the luxury of tapping into customers who love you, but you'll have to be careful those customers have already decided what the brand stands for, and woe unto you if you go against their wishes.

Brands that people don't like to talk about I'll call them boring brands are everywhere. If, like most marketers, you market a boring brand, then you're really earning your living as a marketer. That's because you are trying to get people interested in something they don't really care about.

I've been analyzing social strategies for both kinds of brands, and they form an interesting contrast.

Let's start with the talkable brands. In a recent survey [Forrester report "The Social Tools Consumers Want From Their Favorite Brands"], we asked online consumers whether they'd like to interact with various forms of social application with their favorite brands. Forty-two percent said they would, but the types of interactions they preferred were varied. About one in four consumers would interact with these brands in a discussion forum, one in five would watch videos, and one in six would be interested in connecting with them through a social network profile, like a Facebook page. Only 12% want to read a blog about the brand, which reinforced the earlier research we'd done, showing that blogs are the least trusted form of communication between companies and customers.

What does this mean for the marketer? It means connecting with those enthusiasts is going to be more than a full-time job. First, examine the applications they've already set up on their own their discussion forums, their blogs, their own videos and social network groups. Figure out what you want to join up with, and what you want to create. And you'll have to create multiple applications, because as this research shows, your customers don't agree with each other about where they'd prefer to connect with you.

As a result, you'll probably have make sure they all to those social network profiles, communities, and videos connect with one another, and with the sites your fans already have. We recently worked with a B2B company that faces this exact problem its customers use its products, love them, and have already set up user groups online. The good news: whatever the company does, it will have active participation. The challenge is not messing up the relationships already percolating in the existing user group.

The boring brands have different problem, but social applications can help them, too. [Forrester Report: "Social Technology Strategies for 'Boring' Consumer Brands".] The key with boring brands is to get people talking about their problems, since they won't talk about your brand. In advertising, you can force messages on people watching other things. In a social context, this fails miserably.

Applications that talk about customers problems create borrowed relevance, since you generate talk they care about, then make yourself a part of it. American Express (credit cards are boring, face it) created the Members' Project, a contest to choose deserving charities, since it realized that charity would generate more passion than credit cards. And in perhaps the most dramatic example, Procter & Gamble knew girls wouldn't talk about tampons, but would talk about music, cliques, and school, so it created beinggirl.com as a vehicle to deliver (very quietly) the occasional feminine care products message.

Borrowed relevance is a versatile strategy. Liberty Mutual (in another boring category, insurance) wrapped itself in relevance by creating The Responsibility Project, a community about moral decisions. Johnson & Johnson built a Facebook page for mothers of ADHD kids because, as with all medications, its ADHD drug is boring but its sufferers generate interesting problems. Doritos invited its customers to make ads in the 2007 Superbowl, since an ad contest is more exciting and more social than a corn chip.

Regardless of whether your brand is talkable or boring, as you launch these social applications, you'll generate something very valuable people who care about your brand, or at least the problems it solves. I've begun to ask brand marketers a question: who are your most engaged customers? I don't want an answer like women 25 to 34 with at least one child. I want an answer like Emily DiBernardo, she lives in Kansas and she just can't stop talking about us. With social applications, you'll find Emily.

If your brand is talkable, your social efforts will surface the brand enthusiasts who have the most influence. If it's boring, your social applications will help you find your rare but valuable brand enthusiasts, or even generate a few. Pay attention to these people. Because as advertising clutter rises and word of mouth becomes more important, they're about to become some of your most important corporate assets.

Chris Soghoian observed in CNET that

Google's terms of service, thick with legalese, state that:

You may not use Google's products, software, services and web sites and may not accept the Terms if you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.

Of course if you're in the US that means that anyone under 18 is accessing Google's computer system in violation of its terms of service. And this applies to all Google services, YouTube, Gmail, and Image Search.

Ignoring Legal Risks Leads to Selective Prosecution
Federal prosecutors recently used the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to selectively prosecute Lori Drew as a hacker for violating MySpace's terms of service. She lied about her identity, and harassed a troubled minor who was also using the system under a false identity. After the child committed suicide, a media and political frenzy resulted in federal prosecutors turning a breach of the site's terms, which might not have even been civilly enforcable, in to a federal criminal case.

Ignoring the Disconnect Between Terms and Practice May Partly Void the Agreement
Obviously, online services retain the right to modify their own terms of use. You may begin a user experience with a minimal grant of rights and a maximum of restrictions when reflexively accepting terms. However, when site staff clearly operate to the contrary to those terms, and in some instances assure users that terms in the TOS won't be enforced, isn't the contract being modified within the user experience?

Smoking Gun: Google for Kids
Google in fact provides safe-search resources just for kids. There's no easily accessible link to terms of service, so arriving new users aren't even exposed to them.

Question 1: By creating this site and its other practices, doesn't Google by their own practice modify their terms?

Question 2: Could any reasonable person believe that a new visitor to the Google Directory for Kids and Teens should be bound by these unseen terms, which even Google seems to disregard?

Question 3: What risk is created by the gap between the lawyers who wrote the TOU, site management who follows their own drummer, and visitors who ignore the terms are entirely disconnected.

Are such TOU's unenforcable sharades posing as contracts?

Getting through to the 5-18 year old demographic is increasingly becoming more and more complicated. Parents are more vigilant, multiple channels exist, and most of us in social don't know where they hang out in the first place. (Here's a hint: it's mostly mobile and will continue to go in that direction.)

How can you break through and communicate/engage with the kids without being mistakenly harangued by Chris Hansen? Good question and I don't necessarily know if direct social engagement is the right place to grab their interest.

It comes back to a simple tenet: Add Value. How can you effectively add value for a teen? Talk about sensitive issues like P&G (Beinggirl.com)? Provide information about cool products and their customizable options (Lego City)? Or just be a fun place to hang out (I looked, but anything I put here will be outdated by the time this post goes live)?

The key will being able to get in front of the child/teen and engage them in a dialogue that is beneficial to them, supported by/parent friendly, and is not intrusive. Mobile opt-in is a good place to start here. However, you have to really break down what kind of information you are sending to kids.

Partnering with a popular television show, movie or toy would be the best place to start. This way you already have a built in audience. Most marketing campaigns to kids start and end at this point. Do you have to stop the conversation though? Or can you continue to add value to the audience that you gained over the course of your program. The answer? Yes.

This can't be a half-hearted attempt to change the dialogue. You really need someone that can nurture the community, provide leadership within, and push the community to action when needed.

Best way to do this with kids? Free anything.

Children and teens both have a desire to conform, be cool, and acquire massive amounts of free anything. To inspire a community: simply make them feel welcome, give them a voice, and provide them with cool stuff/schwag. (Yes, that's it.)

Have any other suggestions on how to effectively transform the marketing experience of kids/teens online? How can we effectively build communities that add value? Do you have any other examples?

Costolo and his team, based in Chicago, joined Google two years ago when Feedburner was acquired for $100 million. Like some other Feedburner employees he has moved on to other projects within Google. He currently reports to Neal Mohan, an exec in the Ads group, as the group product manager for social ads.

Costolo has no plans for his next job/startup. But something tells me that in a few months we'll be hearing about his next venture. He turned $8 million in venture capital into a $100 million payday. More than a few venture capitalists will be taking him to lunch at their first opportunity.

Interesting side note: Costolo, who was a stand up comedian in a former life, is rumored to be the author of a Twitter account mocking a well known Silicon Valley angel investor, Chris Sacca. Zingers include Headed to Africa for charity kite-surfing event. Kites made from t-shirts of child soldiers in Ivory Coast to draw attention to their plight and Going over my SXSW talk on why I should have equity in your startup. Getting inspired just proofreading it. Sacca's real Twitter account is here.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

A 1950s ranch-style dollhouse went up on eBay today. One of our favorite sellers, momoderne, is opening the bids at $125, or buy it now for $135. It's not entirely modernist (the drapes and bedroom furniture are traditional remnants) but there are many progressive details such as the walls of glass, the built-in woodwork and room divider, the fireplace, and the pedestal chairs.

Update: Thanks to Anne's comment below, we have the original name: Magnetic Doll House by Child Guidance. TimeWarp Toys says it was produced in 1964.

Hope you'll pardon the big fat Picnik logo above. I'm beta testing a new slideshow feature. What do you think? Do you prefer this preview of eBay listings, or is the standard column of static photos (below) better?

It's obviously not a good thing. But what was surprising is that within 45 minutes, the other people on the team adopted the bad apple behavior. They started acting like the bad apple. Turns out it's contagious.

This got me thinking about team dynamics, and the criteria we use when we build teams, interview people for a job, etc. When it comes to looking at the personality traits, and how well a person can fit within a team, it occurs to me that it's crucial to avoid someone with those bad apple traits, because it will spread to the rest of the team.

Thinking back to teams that I've been on, I know this is true. I've seen it happen. And I'm really grateful that the team I'm on now at work, Intel Software Network, doesn't have any Bad Apples to bring us down. I've marveled at how great the team dynamic is in this group since I joined almost two years ago, but only now do I realize that the lack of Bad Apples is one of the (probably big) reasons.

So keep Bad Apples away from your teams! It's hard to make a person change behavior, and if you can avoid it, it's probably better to not get into that situation in the first place.

Interestingly, the researcher on This American Life said they discovered an antidote to Bad Apple behavior - someone who exhibits strong leadership by asking a LOT of questions, of everybody. In fact, that person in the study was the child of a career diplomat. So if you do get stuck with a Bad Apple on your team, there may still be hope.

Kidoz is an internet browser with a very beautiful interface where kids can not only browse websites but they can also watch educational videos, nursery rhymes or cartoons available on YouTube.

Kids can watch safe YouTube Videos

The best websites for kids are arranged in attractive categories

You don't have to search for stuff on the web as all the hard work has already been done by the Kidoz team. They have taken the best websites and YouTube videos appropriate for kids and arranged them inside Kidoz - the interface is as intuitive as a public kiosk so children as young as 3-4 years should be able to use the software without the assistance of parents.

Kido'Z is available for all platforms and requires Adobe AIR. The only limitation is that you cannot add your own favorite websites to Kidoz.

The Best Websites for Kids Packed inside a Browser - Kido'Z - Digital Inspiration

It matched the Federal Trade Commission's largest fine levied under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. In 2006, the FTC dinged social-networking site Xanga.com $1 million on similar allegations. The settlement marked the 13th enforcement actionthe FTC has undertaken against companies for violating the act -- bringing to $3 milliion the amount in total fines.

According to an FTC lawsuit(.pdf) Sony unlawfully obtained and publicized personal information, including e-mail addresses and photos, from children under 13 via the registration process on its roughly 1,100 music sites.

Under the 1998 Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA, website operators must obtain the consent of parents or guardians before they may lawfully collect or publish personal identifying information of children under 13.

"On certain of the company's music sites, after collecting dates of birth from children indicating that they were under 13, Sony Music enabled children to create user profiles in the form of personal fan pages, through which children were able to interact with other Sony Music fans, including adults," the FTC's lawsuit alleged. "Sony Music publicly posted and made available for viewing on the internet certain items of information submitted by children in creating their user profile, including any photos they may have uploaded, as well as their gender, age, city and country."

The law cannot prevent kids under 13 from faking their dates of births or providing bogus e-mail addresses of their parents in a bid to acquire parental consent. Still, Sony collected and/or broadcasted on its websites information from 30,000 children who listed their dates of birth as being under 13.

"Sony Music is paying the penalty for falling down on its COPPA obligations," FTC Chairman William Kovacic said.

The lawsuit alleges that, since 2004, at least 30,000 children under 13 had registered on Sony's music websites, and that Sony had "actual knowledge" that it was breaching the law.

Businesses often use information they collect from web users for marketing purposes.

The Federal Trade Commission also faulted Sony for having a deceptive privacy policy. The policy indicated that if children marked they were under 13, they would be "restricted from participating in Sony Music's web page activities."

A spokeswoman for Sony was not immediately available for comment. The FTC said Sony is now complying with the protection act.

See Also:

• When Complaining About Your Job Becomes a Privacy Violation ...
• Barack Obama's Privacy Challenge
• Google Privacy Practices Worse Than ISP Snooping, AT&T Charges ...
• Bill Proposes Privacy for Americans' Laptops at Border
• Ask.com's Privacy Tool Tracks Users, Groups Tell Feds -- Updated ...
• Help Name the Homeland Security Privacy Pig - Closed
• Facebook Expands Privacy Features, Including a Faux One
• Bush Nominates Three to Empty Privacy Board
• ISPs Facing Privacy Scrutiny Likely to Point At Google

Update: The Progress and Freedom Foundation is funded by the record labels, including EMI, Sony and a host of content providers.

A conservative think tank lashed out at U.S. District Judge Michael Davis on Monday, calling his mistrial decision (.pdf) in the Jammie Thomas music sharing lawsuit "unreasoned," "unreasonable" and "injudicious."

The new position paper (.pdf) from the Progress and Freedom Foundation says the judge's September ruling is riddled with "profound flaws" that "must be exposed before they mislead other jurists."

Davis' decision overturned a $222,000 Minnesota jury verdict against Thomas, setting the stage for a new trial.

The Washington-based PFF's staff and board are filled with former Reagan administration and other government officials. Monday's publication, "Thomas on the Making-Available Right: An Unreasoned and Unreasonable Decision," comes as the Recording Industry Association of America is demanding Judge Davis allow the record labels to appeal the decision to a higher court before a retrial commences. The trial is currently set for March.

Davis, a President Clinton appointee, tossed the jury's October 2007 verdict after concluding his jury instructions made it too easy for panelists to find Thomas liable for infringing 24 music tracks on the Kazaa file sharing program. Davis had instructed jurors Thomas was liable for infringement solely for having music in an open share folder on a peer-to-peer network, even without evidence that anyone had downloaded the music illegally.

It was an important decision, resting at the heart of what proof is required to ding a file sharer for copyright infringement, with fines totaling up to $150,000 per music track.

The RIAA has issued about 30,000 lawsuits. Most have settled out of court. Rulings on the so-called "making available" argument have been all over the map. The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled in a file sharing case.

Only one federal judge has sided with Davis. But the RIAA eventually won a $40,000 judgment from the judge, before trial, after the court said the defendant had tampered with evidence. But a Texas judge last month sided with the RIAA in a case against a teenager accused of "making available" music on a file sharing network.

In declaring a mistrial in the Thomas case, Davis wrote that "actual" distribution of music files was required. The RIAA countered that infringement was implied (.pdf), and that it was next to impossible to demonstrate somebody else downloaded files that Thomas publicly made available.

Still, the decision, even if ultimately accepted by the U.S. Supreme Court, does not kill RIAA lawsuits. In every case, the RIAA downloads music files from the open share folder. Judge Davis said the 24 downloads allegedly made from Thomas' share folder could be used as evidence of infringement. (A looming issue, however, is that the RIAA's investigators are not licensed, which could become an evidentiary issue but so far has not.)

Thomas Sydnor II, a Progress and Freedom Foundation senior fellow, blasted Davis for failing to follow case law that found pedophiles were guilty of distributing child pornography for solely having kid smut in an open Kazaa share folder. Snydor wrote that Davis "found these on-point analyses of the ordinary meaning of 'distribute' irrelevant."

Sydnor, a former copyright adviser to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Thomas decision misread or disobeyed precedents, federal treaties, scholarly reviews and the three branches of government.

In his mistrial decision, Davis concluded the RIAA's position "is simply not reasonable."

Sydnor seized on that language.

"And with that, Thomas collapsed its rickety tower of clashing results, unreasoned decisions, and distinguished precedents," Snydor wrote. "This extreme claim was itself unreasonable, and it triggered cascading absurdities."

Illustration: Modernhumorist

See Also:

• Thomas Demands Retrial in RIAA $222000 Verdict
• RIAA Decries Attorney-Blogger as 'Vexatious' Litigator
• Beckerman: RIAA's 'Vexatious' Charge Reeks With 'Falsehood and ...
• Retrial Date Set in RIAA v. Thomas
• RIAA Decries Texas Woman as 'Vexatious' for Demanding File Sharing ...
• Judge Declares Mistrial in RIAA-Jammie Thomas Trial
• MPAA Waffling on Piracy Costs; RIAA Says Illicit CDs Worth $13.74 Each
• File Sharer Settles with RIAA for a Whopping $756 a Song

Democrats must be particularly anxious today after eight years of Bush. Tim Robbins, actor-director, partner of Susan Sarandon, and a poster child of Hollywood liberalism, was edgier than normal as he waited to cast his vote this morning. Writes in a tipster, who sadly didn't have a cameraphone: "My friend is waiting to vote at the YMCA on 14th between 6th and 7th... Tim Robbins is making a scene, apparently yelling at some dude. And now the police were called and arrived about 10 minutes ago..." What was that all about?

A guy who was volunteering at the polling place asked Tim to move so they could make more room in the polling space and let more voters in. Apparently, Tim had been sitting inside the voting area for some time. Tim completely flipped out on the guy and accused him of trying to intimidate him by asking him to move, thus "infringing upon his freedom to vote," and then he demanded to speak to the highest level of management in the Election Board. The volunteer was beside himself, because here was this celeb-loon going off on him. The volunteer left and after about 5 mins the cops showed. At that point I had cast my ballot and had to vacate the premises."

When you put this scan up on a website, search engines haven't been able to index any of the content of your documents because it didn't recognize the text as text until now.

Google has a new system that scans Acrobat PDFs on the web for words using Optical Character Recognition (OCR). Similar to its process for using OCR to detect words in PDFs that have already been OCR processed, the new system will do the same for scanned documents posted online that haven't yet undergone OCR.

If you have scanned PDFs and are interested in having them converted into text, you can upload the images to your website and take advantage of this service.

Simply follow the instructions for how to use Google OCR from the Digital Inspiration website:

Create a folder in your website (say abc.com/pdf) and upload all the PDF images to that folder. Now create a public web page that links to all the PDF files. Wait for the Google bots to spider your stuff.

Once done, type the query site:abc.com/pdf filetype:pdf [into Google] to see the PDF documents as HTML.

Lifehacker recommends using Google's Webmaster Tools to reign in what gets scanned and indexed on your site, although you should assume anything you put online can be found by those looking for it.

This is a really terrific way to get rid of paper clutter in your work space and in your home since you can now see the words in your scanned documents.

I wrote this to my email list on Saturday the 27th of 2008. Two days before the single largest drop in the history of the stock market.

Now, I promised myself I was retired from blogging to focus on my email newsletter, but I'm getting pounded with so many requests for this essay that I'm giving up and posting it here. This does not mean my retirement from blogging is off, this means I'm posting this so I don't have to respond to hundreds of emails asking for a copy. If you want future missives like this signup for Jason's List: Jason's List signup.

For background, the goal of this post was not to spread fear, but rather inspire folks at startup companies to get focused and to save as many as possible from hitting the wall. Myself? We'll I funded Mahalo for the long-term and while the market down turn isn't good for anyone, we're largely immune from it because we are building on a five year plan that we're only 18 months into.

Doesn't mean I'm not hyper focused, I am. I'm just not panicking. Great entrepreneurs build value and market-share in down markets. They go to work seven days a week and the breakout when other folks check out.

Location: CalaCompound, Brentwood, CA
Monday, September 27th, 5:15PM PST.
Word Count: 3,283
Jason's List Subscriber Count: 6,992
List management: http://tinyurl.com/jasonslist
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Forwarding instructions: startups, VCs
Republishing rights: Please do not reprint

(The) Startup Depression

Since stock market gyrations and the elections seem to be making
everyone rightfully nauseous and depressed, I thought I would take
this email to discuss the biggest ramifications of these challenging
times: depression.

It's my believe that the economic downturn will be much worse than it
is today, and that 50-80% of the venture-backed startups currently
operating will shut down or go on life-support (i.e. 3-4 folks working
on them) within the next 18 months.

Make a list of every Web 2.0 startup to raise an A or B round and
cross 80% of them off the list, because they will not make it to their
next round of funding or profitability.

Now, I could be totally wrong. No one can guess or time the markets
perfectly. However, planning for the worst is a virtuous idea, so I
encourage you to read on.

Everyone I talk to is feeling confused, paralyzed and anxiousmany
are in full-blown depression. People are scared, and they should be.
This could be the start of a very difficult time for our country and
the rest of the world.

In this email, we'll focus on the entrepreneurial and startup
depression and economic downturns/depressionsand how you can deal
with them.

Some background to get us started

Few things in the world are as exhilarating as starting a new company.
Metaphors abound, and we've all heard them: starting a company is like
having a baby, falling in love, and running a marathon. Few folks,
however, want to continue the metaphor when things go bad at a
startup. If they did, we would be having discussions about running a
startup being like divorcing your spouse, collapsing from exhaustion
in the 20th mile of the marathon, orGod forbidlosing a child.

Metaphors swing both ways.

Anxiety and depression from a failed, or failing, startup can be
intenseeven debilitating. When outside factors such as markets or
buildings collapsing are added to the mix, I've seen great
entrepreneurs just fold.

Now, I've never folded, and I don't say that as some badge of courage.
No, sometimes it's really, really stupid to keep fighting. Most
consider it especially stupid to fight when you know you're going to
lose. I don't.

The result of never folding is that I've had my ass kicked pretty bad.
Multiple times.

Depending on your DNA, getting your ass kicked is either complete
torture or deviantly rewarding. Truth be told, I like getting my ass
kicked because it makes me angry, motivated and focused. If I look
back on the couple of moments of success I've been lucky enough to
have in my life, they all seem to come after a good ass-kicking.

The darkest hour isin factright before the dawn.

Brief Disclaimer

I'd be lying if I said I understood the complexities of depression or
depressions. I'm not a psychologist nor am I an economist. I've never
suffered from clinical depression and I didn't live through the last
depression. However, I do have a BA in Psychology, have read many
books about the psychology of happiness, and I've felt the sting of
the last huge correction (2000-2002).

Consider these one (hu)man's notes on entrepreneurial depression and
anxiety. They are worth the price you've paid for them, but I hope
they are helpful to youespecially if you're suffering right now. If
you are suffering from depression or anxiety, go see a professional.

Really, it's the best thing to do. Feel free to print this out and
bring it with you and ask your newfound therapist what they think of
my observations and advice. Then email me back what they said I'm
curious where my thoughts rank.

Kurnit's Three Reasons Why Companies Fail

Scott Kurnit of the Mining Company (aka About.com) told me there are
three reasons why a business will fail: it's a bad idea, bad execution
or outside factors. If you examine your business with these three
filters right now, you can baseline where you're at: one, two or three
strikes.

His theory correlates well with the attribution theory in psychology.
The theory concerns itself with how an individual attributes the
things that happen to them (or others). For example, if you were
pulled over by a cop for speeding, you can attribute that to number of
factors, both internal and external.

Some folks might internalize the event and curse themselves for being
reckless: I should have known better! Others might blame an external
source, such as the cop or the bankrupt city they work for: Gosh darn
Los Angeles cops! They're just trying to balance the budget by
harassing us!

Kurnit's theory, as told to me, mentions two internal factors (bad
idea and execution) and one external (outside factors). When faced
with massive market uncertainty, like we are today, it's a virtuous
idea to assess each of these factors.

Right now, every single one of us has HUGE outside factors we must
consider. The market collapse is going to make the next couple of
years impossible and frustrating for many entrepreneurs. Even the
great companies - like Google, Microsoft and Apple - are going to hit
hard times.

One of the most important philosophical minds of our time summed it up
best: I never blame myself when I'm not hitting. I just blame the
bat, and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn't
my fault that I'm not hitting, how can I get mad at myself? Yogi
Berra.

Viktor Frankl's Search for Meaning

John Brockman, my dear friend and agent (if I ever get around to
writing a book), handed me one of the most important books of my life:
Authentic Happiness by Marty Seligman. That book led me to the most
important book of my life: Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor
Frankl.

Frankl was a psychologist and Holocaust survivor.

He studied how people react to horrible circumstances that are beyond
their control. He studied why some people give up and others carry on.
While few of us can understand the level of suffering of people during
the Holocaust, Nanking or the Killing Fields, Frankl put his theories
forward so that we could carry them into our daily lives.

Logotherapy was what Frankl called his theories, and their major
tenants are that we choose how to find meaning in our circumstances
and that our experiences all have meaning.

My interpretation of Frankl is that you actually get to choose how you
feel about your circumstances.

The Worst Year of my life

It's still hard for me to talk about it seven years laterand I'm not
going to talk about it in too much detail right now. In the early
months of 2001, I watched my first business, Silicon Alley Reporter,
crash from 70 employees to 12. The $20m offer I'd received to buy the
business was a distant memory, as was the $11.6m in revenue we had in
2000.

Money was evaporating from the bank account, dotcoms were going bust
and wethe dotcom kidswent from visionaries to charlatans
overnight. I went from hosting multi-million dollar conferences, doing
Charlie Rose guest spots and being featured in a 6,000 word article in
the New Yorker to not being able to meet payroll.

Many folks said I was lucky with Silicon Alley Reporter, while others
said I was fraud who had finally been found out. I was broke, no one
cared about my work, and my life really sucked.

and that was just the start.

Then, the stock market crashed and the accounting scandals set in.
Enron, Adelpia, Worldcom, and Arthur Andersen made the fallout from
the dotcom bust look like nothing.

and that was still just the start.

While lying in bed listening to the radio, I heard that a private
pilot in a small plane had accidentally crashed into the World Trade
Center. Then, I watched the second one hit. Then, I watched them come
down.

To say things went from bad to worse would be a gross understatement.
As I started in disbelief with my fellow New Yorkers, I wondered where
my brother, a NYC Firefighter, was. Then it hit me: he was probably
dead.

Due to a simple twist of fate, he wasn't deadbut many of his friends
were. It was at that time I really took a deep look inside and found
meaning in what happened that day and what happened to me when my
first business collapsed.

In my mind, I was being tested. Horrible things happen in life and I
was faced with several at the same time. From that point forward, my
goal was to not only get back to the level I was at when I was at the
top of my game, but to exceed it.

My goal was to be truly happy every day doing what I loved: running a
startup company. A year later, we started Weblogs, Inc., and 18 months
after that, we sold it. The darkest hour became the dawn, and it was
glorious.

If you're failing right now, and if you're suffering, you need to take
Kurnit's test. You need to access where you're at and you need to
fight on. You can give up, sure, but the truth is that when you give
up, you have to live with that fact for the rest of your life. For me,
living with having given up in tough times is a much worse fate than
certain failure.

If you fail, then by definition you have tried. But if you give up,
you didn't.

Step One: How are you executing

It's fairly easy to tell how well you're executing, so let's tackle
that up front. First, take a look at your plan and see where you are
in executing against it. Are you ahead, behind or on schedule? Second,
you can have everyone in your organization rank your product and its
various features on a scale of one to ten. Third, you have an outsider
rank your product and features.

If you're executing at an seven or eight or above, then you know
you're doing well, but could be doing a little bit better. If you're
executing under a seven, your problems could be execution-based. You
just may not be delivering the goods. If you were a restaurant, the
analogy would be that you've got the right ingredients and product,
but you're just not preparing them well. This means you need to focus
on making the product better.

Another way to get a handle on how you're executing is to take your
product and put it up against your two top competitors and do the
one-to-ten rating process. Rate yourself and your competitors on the
top 10 features of all three offerings. How many are you winning? If
you're winning more than three, you're ahead of the game. If you're
three or behind, then you're average or losing.

Execution is the easiest thing to fix, and you can do it one of two
ways: get the people in your organization to perform at a higher
level, or get higher-level folks into your organization.

It really is that simple: folks can either step up or step out.

Step Two: How good is your idea

Determining if you have the right idea is a little more complicated
since most great businesses do not finish where they start. Google
started as a search engine but bought Applied Semantics in order to
create their real business: text-based advertising.

Microsoft started by building programming software (Altair Basic), but
went on to make it's business in operating systems, Microsoft Office
and servers.

If you're idea is wrong, it really doesn't matter. What matters is if
the original ideas allows you to evolve into your big idea.

In order to evolve, you must think like Darwin. Ask yourself: have you
adapted to your market? Have your customers asked you for something
different than you're currently providing? Have you given it to them?
After you give them what they want, can you anticipate what they'll
ask for next? Are those items following a theme?

At Silicon Alley Reporter, we started with a magazine and people loved
it. However, they wanted to get more frequent updates and asked us to
make it weekly. We reflected on this ask and came back with
something they didn't even know they wanted: the Silicon Alley Daily
email newsletter. 40,000 folks subscribed to it in the first year and
it was a much more usable product than the magazine or the requested
weekly print newsletter that we passed on doing.

The market will tell you what it wants. You just have to really
listen. Clearly, there was a market for the DEMO conference since it's
being going on for years. However, they never listened to the ask of
the market: let the companies be selected based on merit, not their
ability to pay almost $20,000. Yes, I know it's a self-serving
example, but those are the best ones.

When Mike Arrington and I founded the TechCrunch50 event, we didn't
think it would grow to be 2-3x as large as DEMO after only one
yearbut it did. The market had MASSIVE pent up demand for a
merit-based show and we tapped it. We evolved DEMO's business model,
not our own.

Now, I'm left asking myself, if I was trying to evolve TechCrunch50,
what would I do?

Another example from personal experience with start up evolution has
been with Mahalo. When we started, we were just doing hand-curated
links. The pages had very little actual content on them. In our user
lab, folks told us they loved the links, but they kept asking for more
content.

We studied the situation and realized that we could evolve and help
our customers more by writing more content on each page. To do this,
we studied what were the 10-15 things people wanted to know when they
did a searchthen we put them on the page. Doing this drove our
traffic from 300k monthly users last year to 4.6m uniques in August (a
record month).

Bottom line: Your first idea is rarely your best.

The first step in a journey is never the best either! Most folks hit
their stride two hours into the marathon. Don't be afraid to nuke your
first idea and run with your secondor third, forth or fifth.

Evolution is the revolution.

Step Three: Outside Factors

Outside factors are the toughest to deal with because, by definition,
they are outside of your control. Despite our deepest wishes, we can't
reverse the housing bubble, put the Towers back up or reverse the
accounting scandals.

All we can do is deal with outside factors, and knowing how to deal
with them is critical.

When the market is in the middle of correcting, as I believe it is
currently doing, people tend to underestimate everything including:

a) how bad it will be
b) how quickly it will get worse
c) how long it will take to recover

Chances are the market will get worse and that will happen sooner
rather than later. Watching folks on CNBC last month talking about a
two or three quarters of down market was just sad. It takes just as
long to clean up a mess as it does to make ittypically longer.

The housing mess took two or three years to develop (2004-2006). It
will take three years to unravel (2008-2010) from what I can see.
We're gonna be dealing with a bad market for at least two years.

10 Specific things you can do

Since the outside market is out of your control, the best you can do
is focus your energy inward. Here are some things you can do after
you've assessed where you company is at.

1. Execute better: This is fairly simple, as I describe above. Rank
yourself and your performance and improve it.

2. Grow the talent you have: When the market is down, it's a great
time to get your team educated and to the next level. Invest in
training and education of your top people, because they are the ones
who will lead your company through this mess.

3. Firing the average people: Again, it's totally politically
incorrect, but I highly recommend firing anyone who is good or
average. Startups are an Olympic sport and every slot on your team is
critical. You wouldn't put a good swimmer in a relay, would you?
Don't have one in your startup. Fire the good and replace them with
the great.

4. Cut spending every where you can: Recurring costs like
connectivity, phones, rent and insurance are things that you can
easily cut. Go to each of your providers and ask for 20% relief
immediately or you're leaving. Most, not all, will give it to you.

5. Find a revenue stream and ride it: If you don't have a revenue
stream right now, you'd better find one on Monday. Seriously, by the
end of the day. Once you find this revenue stream, ride it. Put at
least 25% of your effort into bringing in revenue.

6. Focus on your profitable clients: If you have revenue, start
focusing on which clients are most profitable. Take them to lunch and
figure out how you can over-service them and sell them another product
(or more of your current product). You're gonna want to protect these
accounts because the folks reading Point Five are going to be calling
them!

7. Make your top ten 10% better: Look at the top ten aspects of your
business and come up with a plan to make each 10% better in the next
30 days. Ask everyone in your company to make suggestions for the 10%
better program and execute on the ones that will provide the most bang
for the buck. Sometimes, there are things you can do today that will
make something 10% better for freeyou just haven't brainstormed
enough.

8. Hold an optional off-site breakfast meeting on a Sunday and see who
shows up: If folks don't show up for you to grow/save the company on a
Sunday for a two hour breakfast, they probably aren't going to step up
when the sh#$%t really hits the fan. You need to know who the real
killers on your team are and you need to get close with them now.
Again, it's fine to have 9-5ers on your teamif you're the Post
Office. You can't have them at a startup company. Note: if you reading
this and saying I'm anti-family, save it. Folks don't have to work at
startups and some of the hardest working folks I've met have families
and figure out how to balance things.

9. Build marketshare: One of the best things to do in the down market
is build marketshare. Look for competitors that are going out of
business and buy them or just steal their clients and talent (i.e.
pick them up).

10. Raise money: I know I said above most folks won't be able to raise
money in the down market, but that's not because the money isn't out
thereclearly it is. The issue is that the big money out there
doesn't want to fund small ideas that are in the death spiral. Build a
plan based on revenue and taking market share and folks will consider
funding you.

What ideas do you have for winning in a down market?

How do you stay inspired in bad times?

Send me your response and if you would like it quoted in a follow up
email, attributed or not.

all the best

Jason

In a move that was not only morbid, but called into question by a slew of critics, a Colorado newspaper reporter Twittered a three-year old's funeral Wednesday after the child died in a car accident earlier in the week.

In what some are saying is the result of the newspaper's undying desire to be the first to report on local news, it Twittered the live events at the funeral instead of waiting to report on it after it was over. The decision to Twitter the funeral was called into question by most in the Colorado press and elsewhere who claimed it wasn't the right place, nor the right time to use a real-time social tool to discuss the events of the service.

I think that reporters are often in the uncomfortable position of reporting from settings where people are in great grief, one critic told ABCNews.com. These situations call for the greatest understanding and discretion on the part of the reporter. To be putting real-time notes out there as opposed to waiting until the ceremony is over; there's an element of pillaging a private moment of grief that I'm uncomfortable with.

The reporter, Berny Morson, still has his Twitter feed active and the live events of the funeral are still included in his timeline. His coverage of the funeral begins with a description of the casket and mourners filing in and ends when family members shovel earth into [the] grave.

Morson and his newspaper, Rocky Mountain News, have yet to comment on the firestorm surrounding his questionable use of Twitter.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0

Comcast's unwillingness to sign the code of conduct and purge its system of child pornography puts Comcast at the back of the pack in the race to fight this scourge, and would likely be surprising to Comcast's millions of customers across the country.

Daniel Zemans, our man in Chicago, checks in with another piece of intel on the Windy City pizza scene. Daniel also blogs about Chicagoland pizza on the Chicago Pizza Club blog. The Mgmt.

"I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite."

When I was a young sparky attending Cubs games, I noticed advertisements for a pizzeria called Lou Malnati's on the back of the tickets. I have a vague recollection (perhaps completely fabricated) that I asked my father about going there and he explained that they were in the suburbs and did not have stuffed pizza. That meant they were far away and that I would have seen no point in eating there (in my young mind, if a pizza wasn't stuffed, it wasn't good).

By the time I tried Malnati's for the first time in 1999, I already knew that deep-dish pizza was worth eating. But the buttery crust, sweet chunky tomato sauce, and fresh homemade sausage on a Lou Malnati's pie changed my pizza worldview forever. Since that time, I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite.

Lou Malnati and his wife, Jean, opened the first Malnati's in 1971 in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. Before that, he had worked at Uno's with his father, Rudy Malnati. In fact, there is some debate as to who actually created the deep-dish pizza that Uno's introduced to Chicago. Uno's says Ike Sewell did, but a Malnati's spokesperson says that Rudy Malnati was the creator. According to Wikipedia, there was a 1955 newspaper article that backs up the Malnati version of events.

In 1978, Lou Malnati died and his sons took over the family business and still run it today. In that time, the business has done well. In 1995, they were up to nine locations, and today they have 28. However, only ten of those are sit-down restaurants, three of which are in Chicago and seven are in the suburbs. In addition to the restaurants, the company ships 250,000 pizzas around the country every year.

It is also worth mentioning that Malnati's has been a remarkable corporate citizen. In 1995, the company partnered with a local community organization and opened a restaurant on the far west side of Chicago in Lawndale, a community that could be the poster child for urban decay in America. In addition to employing local residents and offering high-quality food, the Lawndale Lou Malnati's contributes 100 percent of its profits to help finance educational and recreational programs for neighborhood youth.

Enough Business, Let's Talk Pizza

Photograph courtesy of the Chicago Pizza Club

Normally when I go to Malnati's, I get The Lou, which is the pizza in the upper left in the photo above. The Lou starts with the buttery crust that is, in my opinion, the best pizza crust in Chicago. It is not quite as thick as the traditional deep-dish crust found at the more visible downtown pizzerias like Uno's and Gino's East. The texture is perfectflaky but not weak, and crisp but not hard. The cornmeal gives it a nice flavor and a yellow shade. While The Lou automatically comes with a butter crust, other deep-dish pizzas do not, although they can be upgraded to a butter crust for 75 . I've always paid the odd nominal amount, so I can't say a word about the regular deep-dish crust.

On top of the crust comes a fantastic blend of mozzarella, Romano, and cheddar cheese. Malnati's has bought its mozzarella from the same small dairy farmer for 35 years. On top of the cheese in The Lou is fresh spinach and fresh mushrooms. The next layer is Malnati's chunky, sweet, and slightly acidic tomato sauce. The Lou is topped with sliced Roma tomatoes, which are also available as a topping on its other pizzas.

A Sausage-Crust Pizza

As much as I love The Lou, which I have no problem describing in detail from recent memory, I decided to expand my horizons a bit on my recent Slice trip, and I ordered a pizza that may well only be available in a city that once was Hog Butcher for the World. I'm not sure when or why it started, but Malnati's offers a unique gluten-free pizza. Other places offer gluten-free pies, but they typically make a crust out of rice flour rather than wheat flour. There is nothing resembling bread in the Malnati's version. The crust is one large piece of savory, juicy sausage.

The bottom layer is about a quarter-inch-thick piece of sausage. The next layer is about the same thickness of mozzarella cheese. I opted for mushrooms and Roma tomatoes as toppings. The mushrooms were under the sauce, and the sliced tomatoes were on top. For reasons I can't explain, even though there is no thick crust to deal with, it still took 35 minutes to cook the pizza.

Both my dining companion and I agreed it was worth the wait. One unavoidable flaw of the sausage crust is that it does not hold onto the melted cheese nearly as well as a traditional crust. As a result, this can be a messy treat.

While Malnati's remains primarily a suburban chain, there are two conveniently located restaurants in Chicago that out-of-towners can easily reach. One, where I went tonight, is on the north side of the city, just more than a mile directly south of Wrigley Field. The other one is in River North, just north of the Loop and west of the North Michigan Avenue shopping district. Both restaurants are filled with Chicago sports memorabilia and offer deep-dish, thin, and gluten-free pizza.

I am far from alone in my infatuation with Lou Malnati's pizza. In the 1990s, Mark Evans, a suburban Chicagoan and retired Air Force officer, sent 50 pizzas to the troops in Bosnia. Recently, his 16-year-old son Kent asked Evans whether the troops currently in the Middle East had access to the family's favorite pizza. Following an email exchange with Gen. David Petraeus, the Evans family got to work. They are currently raising money to buy 3,000 pizzas to ship to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan for the Fourth of July. That's some patriotic pizza love.

"I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite."

When I was a young sparky attending Cubs games, I noticed advertisements for a pizzeria called Lou Malnati's on the back of the tickets. I have a vague recollection (perhaps completely fabricated) that I asked my father about going there and he explained that they were in the suburbs and did not have stuffed pizza. That meant they were far away and that I would have seen no point in eating there (in my young mind, if a pizza wasn't stuffed, it wasn't good).

By the time I tried Malnati's for the first time in 1999, I already knew that deep-dish pizza was worth eating. But the buttery crust, sweet chunky tomato sauce, and fresh homemade sausage on a Lou Malnati's pie changed my pizza worldview forever. Since that time, I have tried more pizzas than I can possibly remember, and Lou Malnati's remains my favorite.

Lou Malnati and his wife, Jean, opened the first Malnati's in 1971 in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago. Before that, he had worked at Uno's with his father, Rudy Malnati. In fact, there is some debate as to who actually created the deep-dish pizza that Uno's introduced to Chicago. Uno's says Ike Sewell did, but a Malnati's spokesperson says that Rudy Malnati was the creator. According to Wikipedia, there was a 1955 newspaper article that backs up the Malnati version of events.

In 1978, Lou Malnati died and his sons took over the family business and still run it today. In that time, the business has done well. In 1995, they were up to nine locations, and today they have 28. However, only ten of those are sit-down restaurants, three of which are in Chicago and seven are in the suburbs. In addition to the restaurants, the company ships 250,000 pizzas around the country every year.

It is also worth mentioning that Malnati's has been a remarkable corporate citizen. In 1995, the company partnered with a local community organization and opened a restaurant on the far west side of Chicago in Lawndale, a community that could be the poster child for urban decay in America. In addition to employing local residents and offering high-quality food, the Lawndale Lou Malnati's contributes 100 percent of its profits to help finance educational and recreational programs for neighborhood youth.

Enough Business, Let's Talk Pizza

Photograph courtesy of the Chicago Pizza Club

Normally when I go to Malnati's, I get The Lou, which is the pizza in the upper left in the photo above. The Lou starts with the buttery crust that is, in my opinion, the best pizza crust in Chicago. It is not quite as thick as the traditional deep-dish crust found at the more visible downtown pizzerias like Uno's and Gino's East. The texture is perfectflaky but not weak, and crisp but not hard. The cornmeal gives it a nice flavor and a yellow shade. While The Lou automatically comes with a butter crust, other deep-dish pizzas do not, although they can be upgraded to a butter crust for 75 . I've always paid the odd nominal amount, so I can't say a word about the regular deep-dish crust.

On top of the crust comes a fantastic blend of mozzarella, Romano, and cheddar cheese. Malnati's has bought its mozzarella from the same small dairy farmer for 35 years. On top of the cheese in The Lou is fresh spinach and fresh mushrooms. The next layer is Malnati's chunky, sweet, and slightly acidic tomato sauce. The Lou is topped with sliced Roma tomatoes, which are also available as a topping on its other pizzas.

A Sausage-Crust Pizza

As much as I love The Lou, which I have no problem describing in detail from recent memory, I decided to expand my horizons a bit on my recent Slice trip, and I ordered a pizza that may well only be available in a city that once was Hog Butcher for the World. I'm not sure when or why it started, but Malnati's offers a unique gluten-free pizza. Other places offer gluten-free pies, but they typically make a crust out of rice flour rather than wheat flour. There is nothing resembling bread in the Malnati's version. The crust is one large piece of savory, juicy sausage.

The bottom layer is about a quarter-inch-thick piece of sausage. The next layer is about the same thickness of mozzarella cheese. I opted for mushrooms and Roma tomatoes as toppings. The mushrooms were under the sauce, and the sliced tomatoes were on top. For reasons I can't explain, even though there is no thick crust to deal with, it still took 35 minutes to cook the pizza.

Both my dining companion and I agreed it was worth the wait. One unavoidable flaw of the sausage crust is that it does not hold onto the melted cheese nearly as well as a traditional crust. As a result, this can be a messy treat.

While Malnati's remains primarily a suburban chain, there are two conveniently located restaurants in Chicago that out-of-towners can easily reach. One, where I went tonight, is on the north side of the city, just more than a mile directly south of Wrigley Field. The other one is in River North, just north of the Loop and west of the North Michigan Avenue shopping district. Both restaurants are filled with Chicago sports memorabilia and offer deep-dish, thin, and gluten-free pizza.

I am far from alone in my infatuation with Lou Malnati's pizza. In the 1990s, Mark Evans, a suburban Chicagoan and retired Air Force officer, sent 50 pizzas to the troops in Bosnia. Recently, his 16-year-old son Kent asked Evans whether the troops currently in the Middle East had access to the family's favorite pizza. Following an email exchange with Gen. David Petraeus, the Evans family got to work. They are currently raising money to buy 3,000 pizzas to ship to soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan for the Fourth of July. That's some patriotic pizza love.

StickerGiant has just announced that they are hosting a laptop stickers contest.

The contest is simple. Take a picture of your laptop with stickers, (it should have stickers on it) upload it to Flickr, tag it stickergiant The contest will be judged by Micah Baldwin our celebrity judge. Entrants will be judged on the diversity and authenticity of the sticker cloud on the laptop.

The winner gets a custom sticker job for free from StickerGiant, we'll print your stickers, gratis! The contest ends when we get 25 entries.

photo by Josh Bancroft

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But Weisner replied, "It is sad to think that a candidate might use their children to play political games. This was meant to help a charity and educate a child. Nonetheless, Alderman Lawrence's daughter, herself, is welcome to participate."

The timing of the birth worked out great. My wife will be home until school lets out in May - and she'll be able to stay at home during the summer. Altogether, she'll get more than 4 months with baby, before school starts back, next fall.

As you might imagine, due to the fact that she'll miss the last few weeks of school, her paychecks over the next four months will be reduced. The actual amount of the reduction will be based on the number of sick days and personal leave days she had remaining, prior to the delivery, and the number of days she actually misses. Suffice to say, things will be a little tight' around the old NCN household, but we are prepared!

Why? Because, we have an emergency fund! With six months worth of expenses, set aside in our Orange Savings Account, we should be just fine.

Four years ago, when our son was born, we used credit cards to cover the gap between actual and expected income. But, not now. No, now we will use the funds in our savings account, to make up for the lost income. In fact, so far, we are doing just fine, living off of my income alone. But, should we need it, the money is there.

It's amazing how much better we feel about our current situation, knowing that we have our emergency fund, and that it's there if we need it. Plus, instead of worrying about paying back our creditors, we can focus on enjoying the new baby!

But, as much as the tech world tries to treat them as special, we don't believe startups are special. They aren't born out of big bang moments where the laws that govern other businesses don't apply.

From the moment they go live, startups are as real as any other business. They are governed by the same set of market forces and economic precepts that wrap around every other company, new or old.

At the atomic level, all businesses need to generate revenue to pay their bills, grow their business, and stay in business. The sooner they find themselves in the black, the better chance they'll have to survive. Call it a business survival instinct businesses have to feed themselves or they'll die.

Suggesting startups specifically tech startups don't need to look for revenue opportunities now is akin to spoiling a child and shielding them from the outside world: They're far less prepared when they eventually have to leave the house for the first time.

A poorly run startup is a poorly run business. A wonderfully run startup is a wonderfully run business. I don't believe there are many great startups that are bad businesses. Maybe less than 1%. If the business is bad the startup is bad. A great idea, maybe, but a great business, no.

So if you start something up, start a business, don't start a startup.

Last week, we wrote about how Twitter, our Best Web LittleCo of 2007, was quickly morphing into a viable platform for serious discussion. One can see that happening today, as Super Tuesday primary elections take place across the US and people report and debate the results across Twitter. But what about Facebook? It was, afterall, our Best Web BigCo of last year, one that we called a "company that really came of age this year; and [...] was the catalyst for some important Web trends."

So we started wondering, could Facebook be a catalyst for something else: social change. Dry mentions the Causes application on Facebook, and groups which "connect thousands of people with common interests in humanitarian efforts." Dry also talks about Facebook as an organizational tool, writing, "it's very easy for people to organize races for cures and alert their 547 nearest and dearest to articles on under-covered international tragedies."

Facebook as a Vehicle for Social Change

Indeed, on Facebook's graduation day a massive political protest in Colombia demonstrated Facebook's power to rally people to a cause. Monday afternoon hundreds of thousands of Colombians took to the streets to protest the Marxist rebel group FARC. Estimates on the crowd size ranged from 500,000 to 2 million people, which in and of itself isn't all that extraordinary -- millions of people get together to protest things all the time. What is extraordinary, is that the protest was organized largely online through Facebook.

A Facebook event page created by protest organizers attracted over 106,000 confirmed guests with 18,000 maybes. Almost 320,000 people were invited to the event, which demonstrates the ability for Facebook to get the word out to a massive number of people about social and political issues, quickly and effectively.

Another example of someone successfully using Facebook to enact change is the "For Every 1,000 that join this group I will donate $1 for Darfur," which was started by NYU student Marek Grodzicki. The group has 424,000 members -- or $424 -- and Grodzicki is renewing his pledge for next year. That may not be a lot of money, but it's almost half a million people who may now be more aware of an issue because a s